Amy is leading a sourcing review project of a pharmaceutical company M. M operated production, marketing and R&D facilities around the world. Autonomous purchasing groups were located in 7 locations in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Amy found that M had relied on a decentralized purchasing organization because both internal and external customers had always demanded high levels of responsiveness from purchasing. The critical performance characteristics had been (1) short fulfilment lead times, (2) knowledge of local needs and marketplace, (3) flexibility to meet the individual division's needs, and (4) good relationships with the local supply base. Amy finds that M's current decentralised sourcing structure is not lean enough to help M compete against larger rivals in a consolidating industry. Yet centralising sourcing represents a radical transition that would be difficult to implement over the objections of M's worldwide purchasing managers. Amy's team sought to quantify the benefits of centralisation. They identified opportunities both to reduce administrative duplication and to leverage M's global spend. A comparison of the various divisions' purchase requirements revealed that 65 percent of all purchased items were common to two or more locations. In close to 25 percent of all the cases, seven purchasing groups bought the same or an equivalent item. Amy's team found itself in a delicate situationcost savings had to be obtained, but centralisation was not a viable option. They decided that as a global company, M needed to achieve the cost benefits of centralisation while maintaining the flexibility of decentralisation. They began to focus on creating a hybrid sourcing organization. Discuss the following in this context. a) How can M apply the hybrid sourcing practice that Amy's team proposed? Your discussion should be from the perspective of supply chain management and include the performance measures. b) Explain two approaches that can be the alternatives to the approach that Amy's team proposed. Your discussion should include strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches that you propose. c) How should M prevent 'culture shock' as a new sourcing model is implemented and make sure that managers in the local operations continue to be passionate about their ability to help M succeed in a competitive industry?